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Topic: Modest Mouse (Read 22175 times)

Spitting Venom and Parting of the Sensory are the only things on this cd that sound like modest mouse to me

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“The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts” – Friedrich Nietzsche

5. Parting of the Sensory - i don't know what the fuc all this "something's gonna steal your carbon" is all about but the last minute and a half or so of this song is just FuRiOuS

I liked it better when i thought he was saying "Someday you will die somehow and someone's gonna steal your coffin"

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“The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts” – Friedrich Nietzsche

The new album's sick, I'm in love, it's the best thing to come along in a long time. That's all well, and good, and old news.

This, however, is neat new news:

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Exclusive: Modest Mouse Frontman Talks Cutting Self, Heath Ledger CollabWe caught up with enigmatic Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock shortly after topping the Billboard charts to find out how it feels to sell thousands of records, what he's up to next, and why the hell he cut himself.

So, um, why'd you cut yourself?I had lost my voice in Portland, and I was drinking single malt scotch, which opens up your vocal chords. That night I was drinking coffee with single malt scotch and was having a really good time. I got hyper, got kind of punk rock on it, no crazier than Nick Cave or Iggy or anyone like that. It’s not a cry for help. If people want to make it a sad sack moment, f*ck them. I see no reason to turn my fun into their drama. After the show I was in a great mood. It wasn’t something I even thought about until a few days later when I got a text from a friend that said “Someone said you cut yourself -- are you ok?” and I’m like, “Oh sh*t. Here we go. I know how this one plays out.” So now I gotta answer this question for the next year.

Were there any songs you plan to release that didn't make it on the record?We’re going to make an EP –- a partner record for [We Were Dead]. They’re really good songs, a couple of my favorite songs didn’t make it to the record, but they’ll be coming out when we have a chance to get them together. Not a clue when that’ll be. There’s one called "Autumn Beds" that’s about some of the characters that are recurring on this record, the people who worked on the fishing boat -— it’s about their trial and them getting killed again. There’s one called "Tie the Lake Down," and there’s another called "The Whale Song," which is a lot of people in the band’s favorite song.

Any other videos planned, apart from "Dashboard"?We started working on some lower budget videos for seven or eight other songs. Heath Ledger’s been wanting to do a video for one of the songs that didn’t make it on the record, "King Rat." Terry Gilliam is going to help animate it. Heath and I have a mutual friend and when we were in Australia, my fiancé and some of us in the band went out on a boat with him and his family and friends and talked about the idea. He’s got a video production company and was interested in working on something. We were talking back and forth for a while. The idea seemed sort of dropped, but then he just sent me an email saying that he wanted to do it. And I love me some Terry Gilliam. I hope it works out and I don’t sound like a f*cking liar at the end of this.

So the EP was released about a month and a half ago. Pretty good stuff, though I haven't had as much of a chance to listen as I'd've liked. Really fond of Guilty Cocker Spaniels, Autumn Beds, and The Whale Song (and King Rat, which I'd already heard). They also performed on Letterman a while back. That one's probably on YouTube somewhere, I'm sure. The other news is, the video that's been talked about for a long time was finally completed (released along with the EP) in Heath Ledger's memory (he directed). Watch the King Rat video.

Who knows what it means for what the new album will sound like. But last time Isaac Brock collaborated, he came up with something as amazing as WWD, breathed new life into Tiny Cities Made of Ashes' live performance thanks to Johnny Marr's rockin' guitar, and suddenly started playing anything and everything from their old catalog, making them worth seeing again even if they have blown up too big for their concerts to be enjoyable anymore. I mean, they've played stuff from Sad Sappy Sucker on tour now!

This harkens back to a bootleg of Diggin' Holes in the Water (Ugly Casanova) I have where someone asks Isaac to play Dukes Up and he replies, "I wouldn't even play that in the band it was written for!" to raucous laughter. Things have changed.

Their live audience has been comprised of creeps long before they blew up big(or, rather, bigger). Maybe it's just unfortunate coincidence, but every time I've seen them (the first time being in 2001) I've been subjected to the dredges of the concert-going public.

Coincidentally, almost every live show of their I've seen have been consistently disappoint. Unfocused, sloppy, and way too jammy for my tastes. It's a testament to how goddamned good their discography is that I kept going back to see them.

That all changed with the addition of Johnny Marr. Every show since then has been focused, energetic and incredibly technically proficient. He really added a dynamic to the band that I didn't think an outside input would necessarily bring.

The best set I've seen them perform, though, was last October (one of the shows they performed Four Fingered Fisherman, actually) at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit. It was acoustic, included banjo and horns, slightly reworked older material (a really fantastic Cowboy Dan). If they're bringing that kind of focus and musicianship to their next album... it'll be a pretty fucking fantastic progression.

I think there's a bootleg of both of their Bridge School sets floating around on the interwebs for anyone curious.

Story time! I too had an unpleasant concert experience, summer '07. I think I've seen them three or four times; third was worst. Fourth was mellower. Third was in Ohio. Idiots moshing, climbing up on stage. These dykes trying to hold hands, sneak past me, so I elbowed one in the boob, shoved her back, trying to hold my comfortable fifth row "spot". Scenes like that are ripe for frottage, too. It's filthy. Invisible kicked off the concert and everyone started SHOVING. Ridiculous! I worked my way to the front, out of the insanity. I got out of that sea and moved back into the more mellow crowd. Of course, security didn't give a shit about that, but they couldn't have me sitting down on steps. Oh no. So, this scrawny security guy told me to move. I said, dude, I'm not hurting anything. Those idiots up front are ruining our enjoyment of the concert. Why don't you go do your job and take care of THAT? I forget what happened next. I think he came back later to harass me some more. He tried to grab me, I jerked away. Shoulda slugged him then, but before I knew it, I was escorted out by three security dudes. They let me back in eventually, but it painted that experience as very sour. You don't fucking mosh to Modest Mouse.

Like WWD it? I love it! The only, and I mean only, weak track ON that album is We've Got Everything. It's one rare instance where an artist doesn't understand his best material. That that was a single is telling. Or maybe it was label pressure. But, track by track, we've got MM immediately going to its roots to March into the Sea, flirting with death. Then its crowd pleaser Dashboard, danceable, and even more catchy than Float On if such a thing is possible. Fire It Up, a bit too mellow for my taste (still, decent lyrics), but Florida picks things up again, harkening back to Ohio (more roots). Parting of the Sensory is one of the most gritty, exhausting, invigorating death dirges ever created. Missed the Boat is lyrically and musically one of best tracks they've ever put together:

Tiny curtains opened and we heard a tiny clap of little hands and a tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all them folks, sitting, drifting 'round in bubbles and thinking it was us that carried them when we finally got it figured out that we had truly missed the boat.

Chills, and I still haven't processed why the imagery does that for me, but that's poetry. We've Got Everything is forgiveable, because FLY TRAPPED IN A JAR is up next. This song absolutely KILLS live, and the recorded version isn't too shabby either. Raw, gritty, more of Isaac's death obsession. Education, Little Motel, Steam Engenius: all very solid, though I expected a LITTLE better from a song called Education coming from Isaac, considering his love of the esoteric. Spitting Venom is their magnum opus, and he knew it would be. 8+ minutes of pure bliss and a use of horns that just makes you feel happy, even in the midst of heartbreak. There was a moment at a Sunset Rubdown concert that reminded me of this: dude who had a few too many blurted out in between songs, so earnestly, "Your music makes me feel so happy inside!" That it does.

Cheer up little baby it wasn't always quite so bad, for every bit of venom that came out the antidote was had.

Side note, back in '07 MM performed live for YRock in Philadelphia in an amazing concert, broadcast on Internet radio. He riffed about Uno, and he absolutely JAMMED his heart out on a 16-minute version of Spitting Venom/I Came as a Rat tease. It is my favorite performance of theirs ever. There is some scatting, some unintelligible lyrics (which I would love if someone could translate), and he botches the first verse early on. But, hearing the horns come out and the crowd cheer, hearing the mix of old and new, it's all so incredibly uplifting.

People as Places as People ain't too bad either, but the clinchers are Invisible (In Your Car) (hey there, dancing shifter with your strong cell phone arm...) and King Rat (which came later, and is a defining song of the band -- after all, what else can complement a Modest Mouse BUT a King Rat?). Invisible is noteworthy for the structure it invokes on the album as a whole. Look back to Moon and Antartica, with a song of a VERY similar style and structure in what people are made of. It's followed by another tome similar to Spitting Venom in Life Like Weeds. Relationships gone awry followed by a watery ocean death (what people are made of has "They ain't made of nothing but water and shit" versus Invisible's "We will be crushed by the ocean but it will not get us wet").

Isaac has mellowed, sure, but he hasn't softened, and creatively, though Long Drive in my opinion contained some of his most complex arrangements and satisfying lyrics, he's still gonna be cranking it out for years to come. End artist fellatio.

Will definitely look into finding that bootleg. There are some rarities that must be heard through bootleg for the hardcore MM fan. (Four Leaf Clover is one of my faves, as is the Fishes jam for Trailer Trash, I think it is).

I haven't talked exhaustively to many people about WWD, so I wasn't aware of their being a collective opinion on the album - good or bad - but your assessment of it is spot on with mine. Track by track, I can't see anything you've said that I disagree with.